Susana Praver-Pérez

BIO

Susana Praver-Pérez is an Oakland based poet, short-story
writer and co-founder of La Tertulia Boricua, a monthly Puerto Rican cultural
salon. Her work has previously appeared in the May 2017 issue of The Acentos Review, on KPFA radio and at
numerous live readings around the SF Bay Area. She is an alumna of Naropa
Institute’s Summer Poetics Program, Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshop and is
currently studying Creative Writing at Berkeley City College.

Although Susana is passionate
about poetry, she’s not ready to give up her day job at La Clínica de la Raza in Oakland, California where shehas workedfor over 30 years as a Physician Assistant and currently as an
Associate Medical Director.

María

It
was the winds, Terror winds creeping incognitoSigned in as Sacred Mother,To fool the faithful.

We gathered to wait,Embraces lingering, holding one otherEven if we didn’t know each other’s names.Drums pulsing like heart beats broke the silence.The subidor sang our supplications.Bomba dancers in prayerful trance, chased
storm cloudsSkirts whirling in María’s wake.A crescendo of voices, claves and drums pounded fervent pleas……and then I saw you across the room.

It
must have been the wind and that broken borderBetween the breathing and the departedThat brought you back to me ‘though your ashes swirlIn the air above Aguadilla ten years now.

Dapper
as ever in a white guayabera, a
gentle wind caressed your thick dark hair.I longed to touch your sepia skin across the expanse,Watched your hands dance, make the cueros singPassion vivid as a flamboyán.

For a
sweet moment, I indulged in reminiscence, rambled with you amid calm windsIn Santurce, Utuado, Piñones, Arecibo, El
Yunque, CorozalTill you told of the tempest that shattered these places,Of red earth flowing like rivers of blood.

I asked
who the winds had taken.Your eyes darkened with sorrow… hay muertos…Then brightened---our family had survived,Hands held high amid fallen palms.

I cast
appeals to the heavens on autumn winds,But you disappeared like ocean mist. My tears fell in ripples
of loss—Some fresh, some timeworn, some still unfolding,As the barriles played a mournful güembé.